wants to go over the fiscal cliff, it appears that way, because he has had no credible counteroffer. he says i will give you cuts in the future but he is not specific. his speeches are always peppered with we have to invest. he does not mean in the private sector. he wants more the firefighters, teachers, policemen. this adds to the public debt. we are borrowing, from what i read yesterday, 46 cents on every dollar. that appears to me to be untenable. i am no fan of john boehner but he makes an offer that got him in touch with the rest of the republicans, by the way, because they said he was capitulating but now, obama comes back with it is not good enough. host: let me go back to the "washington times"store rate -- guest: in the current environment that is the correct policy. there's only one component of gdp growth providing growth and that is the federal government. in the current environment, you don't want to reduce that substantially. host: when do you bend that curve? guest: i think we are past passing stimulus bill. we have been growing officially since june of 2009. we're pa